The group recently retained a Virginia-based consultant to look at whether the two schools can be reorganized into a single research-based entity that would collaborate closely with the LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport. The study is to be done by the end of the year.

Louisiana Tech, which is part of the University of Louisiana System, is in Ruston, about 70 miles east of LSU-Shreveport along the Interstate 20 corridor.

"There are other schools in much smaller markets that have more in the form of graduate studies and research than we do. We think we need to address that issue," said Jack Sharp, president of the Committee of 100 of Shreveport-Bossier, which commissioned the $115,000 study with the Community Foundation of North Louisiana.

Sharp said it's far from clear how the details of a merger would work or whether it's even feasible. One goal would be to forge closer collaborations between Louisiana Tech, which has programs in bioengineering and nanotechnology, with the LSU medical school in Shreveport.

But any proposed merger would face strong resistance from the LSU System, where President John Lombardi has advised campus leaders in Shreveport not to participate in the study. An Oct. 12 email from Lombardi to Eva Klein, the consultant who is leading the study, said LSU "has expressed no interest in this merger at this time, nor has such been explored through the appropriate legal and organizational structure."

The email, obtained through a public records act request, said Louisiana Tech would be better off trying to merge with nearby schools such as Grambling or the University of Louisiana-Monroe.

"We find it strange that you are contracted to study the merger of two institutions in different systems with much different profiles when the University of Louisiana System has multiple institutions along the I-20 corridor that would seem much better targets for merger talks," Lombardi wrote.

Any plan to merge public colleges would require a study and recommendation by the state Board of Regents, which oversees all of higher education, followed by a two-thirds majority vote of the Legislature. But the regents could choose to endorse the Shreveport study, which would trigger a merger debate as early as next spring.

State Higher Education Commissioner Jim Purcell said in a written statement that he's aware of the study and is "actually quite interested in the concept, especially because it is being driven by the leaders of the region."

"It is probably too early to speculate on any conclusions, but I do think Shreveport could lead the way for other regions of the state to seriously discuss how their own higher education institutions can meet the needs of their residents as well as industry -- and that's quite exciting," Purcell wrote.

The merger study comes barely six months after Gov. Bobby Jindal unsuccessfully pushed to combine the University of New Orleans and Southern University at New Orleans. An effort to merge the two schools fizzled at the Legislature when supporters failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority in the House.

Instead of a merger, lawmakers approved legislation that shifts UNO from the LSU System to the University of Louisiana System, where supporters said it would be paired with like-minded institutions instead of being overshadowed by the LSU flagship campus in Baton Rouge.

It also comes amid continued debate about the best governing structure for public colleges and universities, which is being examined by a Board of Regents committee tasked with providing a set of recommendations to the 2012 Legislature.

Jindal has been supportive of efforts to replace the state's five higher education management boards with a single "superboard," but those proposals have gone nowhere at the Capitol.